Associate Professor
Room No.: 339A
Phone : +91 (44) 2257 4530
Email : mathangi@iitm.ac.in

Areas of Research Interest:

• Anthropology of Work
• Anthropology of Body and Gender
• Medical Anthropology

Publications:

Book:

• Krishnamurthy, Mathangi (2018) 1-800-Worlds: The Making of the Indian Call Centre Economy, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Journal Publications:

1. Mani, V., & Krishnamurthy, M. (2021). The Work of Sporting Bodies: Football and Masculinity in North Kerala. Verge: Studies in Global Asias, 7(1), 147-169.
2. Coelho, Karen and Mathangi Krishnamurthy. (2020). The Habitus of Agglomeration: Crowding and (Non)Compliance in an Indian City. Anthropology Now; 12(2); 26-38.
3. Krishnamurthy, Mathangi. (2020). Navigating the Body Multiple: Biomedicine, Genetics and Sex/Gender in the Lives of CAH Patients. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal (2020) 14:1–14.
4. Mani, Veena and Mathangi Krishnamurthy. (2018) Making a Locality: The Politics of Land and Football in North Kerala. Leisure Studies; 37 (6); pp.721-734
5. Krishnamurthy, Mathangi. (2005). Rebels or Resources: A Study of Identity Management in Indian Call Centers. Anthropology of Work Review; 25 (3-4), pp. 9-18.

Essays in Edited Volumes:

• Krishnamurthy, Mathangi. 2018. How to do things with Bits and Bytes. In Silicon Plateau Vol.2.; (eds.) Ghidini, M., Kelton, T. pp.53-64. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.
• Mani, V. and Krishnamurthy, M. (2016), “Sociology of Sport: India”, Sociology of Sport: A Global Subdiscipline in Review (Research in the Sociology of Sport, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 37-57. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1476- 285420160000009003
• Krishnamurthy, Mathangi. 2011. Furtive tongues: Examining the language politics of Indian call center workers. In Chutnefying English: The Cultural Politics of Hinglish; (eds.) Snell, Rupert and Rita Kothari; pp. 82-97. Penguin: India.

Invited Publications:

• Krishnamurthy, Mathangi. (2018). Do Poor Women Love Differently? (Commentary). Current Anthropology; 59(5), pp.563-64.
• Krishnamurthy, Mathangi (2018) 1-800-Worlds: The Making of the Indian Call Centre Economy, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
• Krishnamurthy, Mathangi. (2009) 1-800 Worlds: Embodiment and Experience in the Indian Call Center Economy. In Section News, Society for the Anthropology of Work, Angela Jancius (ed.). Anthropology News; 50(5), pp.55-56.
• Krishnamurthy, Mathangi. (2005). Outsourced Identities: The Fragmentations of the Cross-Border Economy. SAGAR: A South Asia Graduate Research Journal (Now, A South Asia Research Journal); 14., pp.23-38.

Book Reviews:

• “We Looked for Scientists…”. Nanoscale: Society’s deep impact on science, technology and innovation in India. Sekhsaria, Pankaj. AuthorsUpFront. Dialogue: Sciences, Scientists, and Society; 2 December 2020.
• Neutral Accent: How Language, Labor and Life Become Global. Aneesh, A.
  Durham and London: Duke University Press. Anthropological Quarterly, Summer 2016, 89(3), pp.981-985.
• Appropriately Indian: Gender and Culture in a New Transnational Class. Radhakrishnan, Smitha. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011. Anthropology of Work Review, September 2011, 32(2), pp. 117-119.
• Living Our Religions: Hindu and Muslim South Asian American Women Narrate Their Experience. Narayan, Anjana and Bandana Purkayastha (eds.). Virginia: Kumarian Press, 2009. Journal of South Asian Diaspora, September 2009, 1(2), pp. 193-95.
• Global “Body Shopping”: An Indian Labor System in the Information Technology Industry. Biao, Xiang. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. American Ethnologist, August 2008, 35(3), pp. 3017-3021.
• The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the Global City. Wilson, Ara. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Anthropology of Work Review, Fall 2005; 26(2), pp. 38-40.

Non-fiction and Popular Press:

• Culture Mulch: A monthly anthropology and popular culture column; The Hindu Sunday Magazine.
• Is a brick art? Is the brickmaker an artist? The Hindu, May 5, 2018; Chennai.
• The Pleasures of Misrecognition. 3 Quarks Daily, Mar 19, 2018.
• I Want to Make Friendship With You. 3 Quarks Daily, Dec 19, 2016.
• On Sepulchral Culture. 3 Quarks Daily, Jan 18, 2016.
• An Anthropologist among Sartorialists. 3 Quarks Daily, Nov 24, 2014.

Professional Affiliations:

• American Anthropological Association
• Society for Urban, National and Transnational Anthropology
• Society for the Anthropology of Work
• Society for Feminist Anthropology
• Centre for Technology and Policy (CTaP), IIT Madras

Select Honours, Awards and Grants:

WLI Initiative Grant  2021
Project Title: A Gender Audit of IIT Madras

Exploratory Research Proposal Grant  2019
Project Title: Rasayani: An Ethnography of Industrial Subjectivity

Young Faculty Research Award  2016
IIT Madras

Wellcome Trust Small Grant  2013
Project Title: Future Bodies: The Politics and Ethics of Diagnostic Testing and Genetic Engineering in India.

Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship  2010
Project: World Citizenship

University Endowed Dissertation Writing Fellowship  2008
Writing Grant to support Doctoral Research

American Association of University Women International Dissertation Fellowship  2007
Fieldwork support for doctoral research

National Science Foundation Dissertation Grant  2006
Fieldwork support for doctoral research

Education:

• PhD The University of Texas at Austin, Anthropology, August 2010
• MA The University of Texas at Austin, Anthropology, May 2006
  
• Masters in Communication (PGDC), Mudra Institute of Communications Ahmedabad,  May 2001
• B.Com, Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce, Pune, May 1999

Select Presentations and Lectures:

Invited Lectures/ Presentations:

• Engendering the Body: A Broad Review of the Body in Feminist Theory. Musings on the Body; Aug 13-14, 2020, Dept. of English; Assam University, Silchar.
• John and Jane and their Ethnographic Counterparts. Seminar at KREA University; November 21, 2019.
• The Ethnographic Turn in Indian Contemporary Art. RE-LOOK (43) – Lectures on Indian Art, 1Shanthi Road; curated by Pushpamala; November 11, 2019; Bengaluru.
• Sexing the Body Multiple: CAH and the Category of Intersex; ‘The Performing Body’; Feb 1-2, 2019; IIT Hyderabad.
• 1-800-Worlds: The Making of the Indian Call Centre Economy; Depts. Of Anthropology, Sociology and Business and Economics; The International Studies Program; Southwestern University; November 29, 2018.
• Navigating the Body Multiple; Seminar talk at The University of Texas at Austin; November 26, 2018
• 2017. Social Dimensions of Technology Transitions; Tandem Research – Policy Lab 03 for a workshop entitled “The Future of Work in India: Technology Foresight Group”; September 2017.
• 2017. Fixing Unruly Bodies: Practising Care for CAH patients, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, for a workshop entitled, “Framing Technology and Care in Asian Contexts”, May 2017.
• Keynote Address: Working through Gender: A Performance in Three Acts. Social Issues in Global India; Nov 16-17, 2017, Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities.
• 2017. Water-Worlds: Image and Representation in the Chennai floods of 2015, The University of Texas at Austin, and The Center for International and Regional Studies/Georgetown-Doha, for a workshop entitled, “Climate Vulnerability in South Asia’s Coastal Cities”, January 2017
• 2013. 1-800-Worlds: The Making of the New Indian Middle-Classes; Seminar at the Centre for South Asian Studies, The University of Edinburgh, June 2013.
• New Technologies, Old Divides: The political economy of technology and outsourcing; September 25, 2008; CSL Colloquium, Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

Paper Presentations:

• The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Embodiment, Figuration and Experience; Association of Asian Studies (AAS)-in-Asia Annual Conference, July 1-4, 2019, Bangkok, Thailand.
• Ethnographic Attunements; Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Nov 15-19, 2018, New Orleans, LA
• How to do things with Bits and Bytes; Media Morphologies: Infrastructures and Technologies in Art, Cinema and Popular Culture, September 1-2 2011, De Nieuwe Oogst Rotterdam
• The Management of Sleep; Association for Asian Studies and International Convention for Asia Scholars Joint Conference, March 31-April 3, 2011, Honolulu, Hawaii
• Waking Life/Working Life: The Sleepless Subjects of the Indian Call Center; Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Nov 17-21, 2010, New Orleans, LA

Professional Experience:
Ongoing Research and Ethnographic Consultancy and Workshops Select clients

• ABC Heinz
• Okapi
• IKEA
• Third Eye Design